Last month I emphasized the importance of knowing your genre so you can articulate it in discussions with editors and preparation for promotional materials. This month I’m discussing genre again, but this time from another perspective: not allowing it to overly rule your writing.
Some books are genre books. They and their authors don’t want to do anything outside the traditions of their genre, don’t try to do anything outside the traditions of their genre, and aren’t expected to do anything outside the traditions of their genres. And that’s great. Think Agatha Christie or many of the Victorian “industrial novels.”
Then, there are books that can be fairly easily categorized but might mix things up a little—I mentioned “romantasy” as a hybrid genre last month. While the fantasy elements are emphasized in fantasy writing (though they may include romance plots), and the tropes of romances are championed in romance novels (though they may also speak to fantasy traditions), “romantasies” are equally weighted.
But books have also diverged from genre traditions—sometimes to literary acclaim and sometimes to criticism or lack of attention from audiences, or some combination of those reactions. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov is such an example.
So, it isn’t my intention to discourage you from experimental writing, if that’s how you are so inclined. Maybe your goal is writing first and book sales second (or third, forth, fifth). But if you aren’t sure how and why your book can be defined in relation to other books, your communications and process will likely be a lot more challenging.
Speaking as an editor, I can tell you that when an author hands me a text and says something like, “Here’s a book I wrote—tell me what you think,” I have quite a bit of guesswork ahead of me trying to figure out what the author is attempting and what sort of feedback will be most helpful to them.
When an author sends their manuscript accompanied by an email that says: This book is sort of contemporary Jane Austen but with some Faulkner and…it’s sort of a thriller—I still might be unsure whether the book should be more genre specific or if we should forget the parameters of genre all together, but at least I have some clues. I can start a conversation by maybe suggesting downplaying the stream of consciousness to develop the thriller plot.
The author might respond by saying, “No, no. The book revolves around stream of consciousness. That’s very important.”
Okay, then. Maybe the witty Austen-esque dialogue that seems out of place should be more distinctly woven into stream of consciousness in a way that enhances the suspense.
Will it work? Who knows? But I have guideposts about where the author wants to go and how to help them get there.
And we may end up going back to the drawing board and decide that it’s really a better book as a cozy mystery—which means some significant revision—but it’s a clear path to a published book that has a defined identity, and we got there, one way or the other, through conversations about genre and experimental writing.
However—I’m exaggerating to make a point. Most of my clients actually have a pretty clear and articulate idea of the genre they are writing in, which logically becomes clearer and more focused the more thought we apply to that genre and it’s audience. And so does my editing.